The question was heard a thousand times in Washington. Will Hu Jintao's visit make any difference to US-China relations? Is China any more likely to accede to requests to let the yuan appreciate and improve American access to its burgeoning markets?

The answer, most analysts seem to reckon, is no, not necessarily. At least not straight away. Which is not to say the Chinese visit failed. It's just not entirely clear who came out on top.

What the US wants from China is clear enough - a currency that appreciates and a level playing field when it comes to trade. Beyond that, a non-threatening military posture and help in pressuring the troublesome twins of North Korea and Iran and progress on human rights.

The Chinese wishlist appears a lot simpler. For Hu Jintao the Washington trip presented one big photo opportunity, the chance to pose on the world stage, feted by the president of the world's biggest economy, hailed as a power whose time has arrived. A 21-gun salute and an extravagant state dinner awash with celebrities must have made it all worthwhile. Especially when you can pick and choose what is aired on state-run TV, it only takes a few images to paint a suitably glowing portrait.

For the US, though, it was always going to be tough going. President Hu is a leader on the way out, due to hand over the reins next year. With an eye to his legacy, there was always going to be much more in it for him to stand up to the US rather than make any huge concessions. For that reason, no-one was expecting any major breakthroughs. But those in the know say solutions are not necessarily the name of the game with China - it's more a case of managing the challenges that will persist.

And on that front there is reason to call the trip a success for Barack Obama. After a horrible year for US-China relations, dogged by confrontations over everything from North Korean aggression to Taiwan, the trip gave both leaders ample opportunity to play nice in public and elapsed with no major gaffes - albeit a few awkward moments.

The most awkward of all came during a stilted joint news conference held by the two leaders. The very first question brought up human rights. But a confusion over translations saw Barack Obama give his entire answer before any of it was put into Mandarin. Then the US president was forced to wait for several minutes, leaning on his podium, while the translation of his answer dragged on - at which point the Chinese leader said... nothing. Perhaps in China that would have been enough to silence the issue but it didn't work on the Washington press pack - even with a helpful Dorothy Dixer interposed by a Chinese state media reporter. The next American journalist took up where his colleague left off and reposed the question on human rights, producing the most newsworthy moment of what was a largely uneventful, predictably scripted affair.

On the spot, Hu Jintao claimed he had not heard the earlier question (although it's since been reported that each and every word of it was translated for him). But then the Chinese president went on to acknowledge "a lot" remained to be done in China when it came to human rights. Just how much of a departure from the usual script this was depends who you listen to. The White House says it's the first such public statement from president Hu. But other analysts say the remark was little more than a bone tossed to mollify the Americans and precious little guarantee of any change of heart, let alone any promise of action. Others still point out that what Hu Jintao means when he says "human rights" is not the same thing Barack Obama means. In any case, everything Hu Jintao said was laced with the caveat that all nations respect different "national circumstances" and the principle of non-interference.

On the same day the state dinner was being lavished on Hu Jintao, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on China. And the tone here stood in stark contrast to the niceties being exchanged for the cameras at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Comments made by congressmen lurched from outrage to suspicion and back again. Outrage at China's human rights record. And suspicion at the Asian giant's intentions. Congressmen accused Hu Jintao of presiding over a "monstrous regime" that engaged in barbaric acts of torture and whose plans were nothing short of world domination. Speaking before the committee, the columnist Gordon Chang, who practised law in China and Hong Kong for nearly 20 years, suggested that less diplomacy was needed rather than more, to avoid feeding what he said was China's sense of self-importance. Former Chinese prisoner Yang Jianli told the hearing a country that failed to honour its commitments to its own citizens would do no good in the international community. Not exactly the noises you'd want from a country you'd just finished pledging newfound cooperation with.

Even the glitzy state dinner wasn't without its uncomfortable footnotes. The Republican leader of the House John Boehner turned down his invitation - as did the Democratic leader of the Senate Harry Reid. When the Chinese leader met with congressmen and senators on Capitol Hill the next day, he came face-to-face with both men. Reid, who had a day earlier told a journalist in his home state of Nevada that Hu was a "dictator", shook Hu's hand and ignored a shouted question about how he intended to work with someone he'd characterised so poorly.

And the Americans extracted few apparent promises from the Chinese leader. The cheque book was open, and a slew of trade and investment deals were announced. Barack Obama welcomed what he said was Hu Jintao's commitment to move towards a market-based system. But when Barack Obama pressed his counterpart in front of reporters, Hu Jintao's answers were notable as much for what they didn't say as what they did. On currency, access to Chinese markets and the protection of US intellectual property, Barack Obama was specific and to the point. Hu Jintao was either completely silent or talked in sweeping generalities. The Chinese dislike for being lectured in public could account for much of Hu's reticence but still - beyond declarations that China was a friendly country and its development an opportunity for the world - there was scant meat on the bones.

But considering Hu's last official visit in 2006 was marred when an interpreter mistakenly announced the Chinese national anthem as that of the "Republic of China", the official name for Taiwan, this trip went as well as could be hoped for both sides. It will likely result in a visit to China by the US vice president Joe Biden, followed by a reciprocal invite for China's Vice President Xi Jinping, who's widely tipped to be Hu's successor.

There is some sense that the United States is perhaps finally tired enough of platitudes that fail to deliver, to be more willing to force some concessions out of China. The Obama administration has adopted an apparently toughened stance, perhaps more obvious in the messages sent in the lead-up to the Chinese leader's visit than during it. But in the days before, no fewer than three high calibre administration players laid down the gauntlet to China in no uncertain terms - the treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on currency and trade, the secretary of state Hillary Clinton on human rights and the defence secretary Robert Gates on the military front. The comments were seen as strategically timed shots across the bow designed to let China know the United States was not about to be pushed around. The timing left Barack Obama free to roll out the red carpet for president Hu and avoid hectoring his guest too much or too fruitlessly in public while making sure China got the message loud and clear.

The China-US relationship is afflicted by more than a dash of status anxiety on the part of the senior partner. And not without reason - after years as the world's only superpower, the US is now looking over its shoulder to an economy that's growing faster than its own with a middle class rising just as America's slides from prosperity in the wake of job losses and home foreclosures. That's to say nothing of education. On one set of international tests released last month, students in Shanghai blitzed it while American children staggered in at 17th. With Hu Jintao standing next to him, Barack Obama made a point of reminding everyone the United States economy was still three times larger than China's. But it's a "mine's bigger than yours" game that the United States mightn't be able to resort to forever. There are flashes of cultural anxiety too in the American response to the Chinese-American "tiger mother" Amy Chua. Chua's provocative memoir, "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" sparked a fierce debate in the US. Extracts printed in the Wall Street Journal prompted more than 7,000 comments and some bloggers suggested her tough love Chinese parenting style was tantamount to child abuse.

If all this is anything to go by, China has a long way to go in the way of soft diplomacy. During Hu's visit, ad space bought on huge video screens in New York's Times Square beamed out an invitation 300 times for Americans to "experience China". Featuring smiling Chinese actresses, models, sportsmen, musicians, businessmen and astronauts it seemed to send a dual message - we are just like you. And we are powerful.

The conversation between the United States and China might sound a little one-sided, and much is no doubt lost in translation, but at least they are talking. Keep your friends close, and your competitors closer.

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